Building a Family Tree

This year, I spent the months of August, September and October tracing the roots of my great-great-great-grandfather, William Spavold, and the origins of the Spavold family. I have used the services of Ancestry.ca in my search and thank the website and others who have studied the Spavold family before me.

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I began with these bits of information:

William Spavold was born in Nottinghamshire in 1785 and died in 1815;William married Eliza Greenfield in 1807;William was a carpenter;after William died, Eliza married John Adam Hill in 1816.

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In my search, I soon encountered Spavolds in Nottinghamshire— many Spavolds. My tree, not yet available to the public, includes over 700 people, including spouses and some parents of spouses.

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The earliest records are of three Spavold males: Anthony Spavalde (1500), an ‘Unknown Spavalde’ (1493-1552) (first name unknown), and a ‘Mr. Spavan,’ (given name also unknown). All three lived in the area of Gainsborough, in northern Lincolnshire, and may have been brothers or cousins. At the same time, there is also a family with the last name of Spafford living in the Collingham area, about 30 kms south of Gainsborough. The names Spavalde, Spavan and Spafford are so similar, I think the families were related to one another.

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Anthony Spavalde married Alice and had a son Anthony, beginning at least seven generations of Spavolds. The Unknown Spavold married Maud of Gainsborough and had 3 sons and 1 daughter, beginning at least fourteen generations into the 1900s. Mr. Spavan had three sons and I have not yet been able to follow them into more generations. The Spafford family stayed in the Collingham area until the mid 1700s when some of the family had moved to Beckingham, near Gainsborough in northern Nottinghamshire; they also have more than fourteen generations into the 1900s.

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The variable spelling of the name may have something to do with the difficulties tracing these families, but Ancestry.ca seems to be able to find records in spite of the various name spellings. ‘Spavold’ is an unusual name and has been listed in the various records as ‘Spaffield,’ ‘Spavin,’ ‘Spavald,’ ‘Spaviald,’ and so on. The ways of writing in the records and their tendency to use Latin phrases adds to the difficulties.

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Screen capture of an early ‘Spavold’ record, from the ‘Nottinghamshire, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812’: shows the marriage William Spavold (born 1523, son of Unknown Spavold and Maud, see above) to Katherine Holte in 1540 in St. Bartholomew, Nottinghamshire, England. The text is difficult to read but fortunately most of these records have been transcribed by hard-working historians.

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The families remained in the Gainsborough area for the first two or three generations, but by 1673 (family of Anthony) and 1583 (family of Unknown) had begun an outward migration to the nearby communities of Walkeringham and Misterton, both in Lincolnshire. By the fourth generation, with the marriage of Nicholai (1638), some of the families had shifted to the Everton area in northeastern Nottinghamshire and soon after to communities in eastern Yorkshire. The entire Spavold family, at least until the early 1800s remained in this group of communities in northern Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire.

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The process of finding these Spavolds has been made more difficult due to the predominance of the given names Thomas, William, Robert, Elizabeth, Mary and Anne in the various families. I still haven’t found William, my great-great-grandfather, but in the next post I will talk about how best to sort family members with the same name.

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All my best,

Jane Tims (a. k. a. Spavold)